


Connected

by FrivolousSuits



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 23:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15035774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrivolousSuits/pseuds/FrivolousSuits
Summary: "Travis Tanner gave me an advanced copy.""He must like you.""We have a special relationship."- Season 2, Episode 4 ("Discovery")





	Connected

**Author's Note:**

> All present-day events and dialogue up through Season 7 are taken directly from canon.

“You better be nice to me-” Mike sits in Harvey’s office and dangles a file in front of him- “because I know where she lives.”

Ever inconvenient, Louis chooses that exact moment to barge in. “Where who lives?”

“My high school sweetheart,” Harvey immediately answers, though he could probably have produced twenty other more convincing lies. “We connected on Facebook.”

Louis doesn’t buy it for a second. “You’re not that sentimental.”

“Yes, I am,” Harvey retorts just as Mike says, “She was his first.”

Fortunately Louis leaves and washes his hands of them before they can dig themselves deeper, and Harvey shoots Mike the look of death, because she wasn’t his first.

 _He_ was.

Not that Harvey knows who “he” is, because his first time was largely in the dark and entirely under the influence. He was sixteen at a house party out in Newton with kids from twenty other schools, and through some combination of alcohol and teenage bravery he ended up naked with another guy in Alicia Meyer’s closet. Harvey remembers they were well-matched in enthusiasm. He remembers the feel of well-defined muscles under his fingers, of rough lips on soft skin.

But after that Harvey left to politely refresh their drinks, got lost in the Meyers’ cellar, and couldn’t find the guy when he came back, and he proceeded to drink, and drink, and forget the rest of the night. Still, the nameless man flits into Harvey’s dreams from time to time, an undefined shadow but for his silky, wavy hair and piercing blue eyes.

Harvey _is_ that sentimental, sue him.

As for why Harvey’s remembering him today, why a quip about high school sweethearts was on the tip of his tongue when Louis asked- Harvey doesn’t bother inspecting that too closely. He makes an effort to never dwell on his past; even at a fairly liberal firm like Pearson-Hardman, it’s simpler to just pretend he’s straight.

He shakes his head and returns to battling Travis Tanner.

* * *

_The first time Travis showed up in New York, he introduced himself to Mike as an old friend of Harvey’s, which unfortunately might have been the least obnoxious lie he told the whole time. He talked his way past Donna too before crash-landing in Harvey’s office._

_“Name’s Travis Tanner.”_

_“You’re Travis Tanner?”_

_Travis’s smile got even brighter than usual. “You’ve heard of me.”_

_“No.”_

_Travis didn’t miss a beat, instead announcing that he was a senior partner with Clyde-MacPhee up in Boston and efficiently goading Harvey into taking over the Emerson Petroleum class action._

_(He brought up Harvey’s senior year championship while fondling his baseballs; Harvey had no choice but to crush him.)_

_Next thing Harvey knew the two of them were in high school, on the grounds of Apple Creek High School where Tanner’s client poisoned 200 plaintiffs, and of all things Harvey noticed that Travis found time to change out of his sloppy khakis and polo shirt into a proper suit that looked strikingly like Harvey’s. Harvey multitasked; even as he did battle for his clients he appreciated how Travis looked almost human now, and how an unsettling chemistry fizzed between them. Mike called them two sides of the same coin, and Harvey couldn’t argue. He worked terrifically hard to out-think Travis, to imagine what he himself would do in some darker timeline where he broke laws left and right._

_Eventually, he beat Travis by pretending to have even looser morals. His PI Vanessa had obtained an illegal wiretap proving Travis had intimidated witnesses, and Harvey threatened to perjure himself and call it legal, just to get Travis thrown in jail. Travis caved and signed over a generous settlement, all the while looking inexplicably disappointed in_ Harvey.

_Harvey didn’t expect to see Travis again, but it was strangely comforting how he at least had the guy’s number. Travis went to great lengths to give it to him, like his Waldorf witness tampering was just the world’s worst pick-up line._

* * *

Travis storms back into New York, now out for Harvey’s license.

God knows what’s wrong with the guy. He shows up to declare war on Harvey before he’s even found an apartment— hell, he claims he moved to New York expressly to take down Harvey, but that’s got to be a joke. And Harvey’s confused and more than a little angry, but there’s a small thrill of excitement at falling back into his old rhythm with Travis. At their reunion they spend a solid minute arguing over who would sell more furniture if they sold furniture in the first place, and though it’s the most juvenile conversation Harvey’s had in months, he enjoys this. Their “special relationship.”

Harvey’d love to know why Travis is suddenly obsessed with ruining his life, but for now he’ll settle for making fun of his tie while Travis makes fun of his hair (which is rich, Travis uses twice the product for half the effect). They’re in an honest-to-god deposition, flinging petty insults at each other, until Travis accuses him of sleeping with Jessica and it’s not just petty anymore.

“Your coiffed hair. Your pretty nails. See, she’s the man and you’re the girl. You know, it’s funny, I would have thought she’d prefer someone like-”

“This deposition is over.”

“Oh, what, is Mommy going to take you home now? Wait-” his eyes take on a villainous gleam- “that’s it. You’ve got a thing for Mommy. Because I actually looked into your mommy, and it turns out that the whole time you were home with Daddy, Mommy was out banging-”

Harvey finishes his sentence with a fist to the face.

He doesn’t know how the hell Travis found out about Lily, but he doesn’t care, not when this random stranger is ripping his life apart. Yet Travis abruptly drops the case soon afterwards, apparently because Daniel Hardman has something even worse on him.

So Hardman’s screwing them both.

It’s an odd moment of connection.

* * *

A few days later, Harvey gets several shots at Travis’s face in the boxing ring, which they mutually decide is the most civilized place to settle the last of their lawsuit drama. The stakes are high, the punches come fast, and Harvey’s more exhilarated and on his game than he has been all week- while sober, at any rate.

If other inconvenient thoughts pop up during their loud, sweaty wrestling match, well. You can’t prove it in court, and that’s all that matters nowadays.

* * *

It’s just Harvey’s bad luck that Ava Hessington, ex-client, digs Travis up again. He has his trademark smirk ready, along with a spiel on how he’ll take Harvey’s lunch money this time, really, and Harvey can’t resist mocking Travis’s lifelong dream of beating him.

The dream doesn’t come true- god knows why Travis hasn’t learned to just _stay away_ \- but on his way to defeat he eviscerates Scottie in another deposition. It’s a pattern by now. He attacks Harvey on a mostly professional level, and he reserves his _ad hominem_ assault for whatever woman’s closest to Harvey on any given day.

“The facts are you had a relationship with him in law school, you worked a case against him, and, shortly thereafter, ended your relationship. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots.” His smirk turns colder as he snipes, “Did you really think you could domesticate him? House in Westchester? Harvey flipping burgers on the weekends? What kind of fantasy land were you living in?”

“Tanner, that’s enough,” Jessica says, mercifully stepping in. “She’s not answering this line of questioning.”

“You loved him, he spurned you, and you set this whole thing up to get him back.”

“That’s insane-” Scottie begins to argue.

“Which part? That you loved him? That he spurned you?”

Harvey’s stunned by the whole scene. He aches for Scottie, he wants to throttle Travis, and some little voice in his head keeps laughing at the word “spurned.”

* * *

Travis Tanner is lying naked in Harvey’s bed, with that smug grin Harvey knows so well.

Travis Tanner is lying naked with Donna in his arms, and Harvey looks at them not with horror but with vague confusion. Those two fantasies are supposed to stay _separate_.

When Paula asks Harvey why Travis popped so suddenly into his subconscious, he refrains from correcting her on “suddenly,” but he knows the truth. Travis crashes into his dreams from time to time, as loud, sweaty wrestling matches in the ring turn into loud, sweaty wrestling matches elsewhere.

Though Harvey knows he’ll never really have hate-sex with Travis Tanner, Travis is still a constant in his life, a convenient target for his building anger and violence, which is why he chases down a case against him. If he’s overly suspicious of Travis, at least it’s justified paranoia, not just his anxiety talking.

He tells himself that when Travis hands him a fair settlement offer and he instantly rejects it. He repeats it, even though Travis swears he’s changed and is just protecting a vulnerable client. He clings to it as he crosses lines left and right, out of control, spiraling downwards until he’s goaded Travis into blasting Donna- that old pattern- and cut him off with a fist in his face.

Then Travis removes himself from the case just to defuse Harvey’s anger and save his own client, and Harvey wonders whether they’ve switched sides of the coin.

* * *

Harvey’s whole life spins out of control.

He punches Travis, then Louis, and when Mike finally gets caught the firm goes up in flames. Harvey suborns perjury, he threatens to kill Gallo, he blackmails the ethics committee into giving Mike a license. He attempts insider trading with Stu’s firm, he pays a bribe to tamper with an election, he commits multiple forms of malpractice and he nearly _commits forgery_ _on a whim_.

It shouldn’t surprise Harvey when people start running from him. Jessica. Mike. Donna’s made it clear that their professional relationship isn’t enough for her, so she’ll leave too, and his partnership with Robert is crumbling now that he’s driven Rachel away. He’s lashing out and breaking more laws than he cares to count, just trying to fix his life before he ends up wholly alone.

One morning he wakes up without the energy to drag himself to the office, too tired of shattering everything he touches.

Enough is enough.

Tentatively, he starts casting around for other jobs, but nothing comes up. His reputation precedes him.

However, a few weeks later a major New York firm offers him senior partnership, and it would be an excellent offer, maybe even a step up from ZSL, had he not already hopelessly antagonized one of their star attorneys, a certain Travis Tanner.

It shouldn’t be an option.

But when Harvey’s life explodes into yet another firestorm, Katrina and Louis and Donna and Robert all shouting around him, he quietly pulls out his phone and signs a contract with Smith and Devane.

* * *

He doesn’t seek Travis out. It’s a big firm, Travis’s office is a full three floors above his, they can coexist professionally without having to ever see each other.

But on his first day there’s a sharp rap on his door, and there’s that smirk, right out of Harvey’s dreams.

“I came to welcome the new kid.”

“You mean, pick on the new kid.”

“I mean tell you what the hell you’re doing here.”

Harvey tilts his head, curious. “I’m here to make you all a lot of money.”

Travis nods slowly, skeptically, and then lets himself into Harvey’s office, sitting right down without an invitation. “You really think that’s the whole story?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

Travis gives him a little shrug. “Better me than someone else.”

“You wanna be the first to twist it?”

“No,” Travis says, surprisingly blunt. “I got you this job.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I told Smith and Devane that your client list is still decent, and when they inevitably catch you committing malpractice we’ll have first dibs. Specifically, _I’ll_ have first dibs.”

“What the hell are you playing at?”

“I like fighting fair.” Harvey snorts, and his own smile widens even as he adds, “So I think you should know the rules of the game.”

“You still doing the ‘changed man’ act?”

“It’s a fun one, great for confusing people.” He gets up from his chair. “You should try it sometime.”

* * *

Harvey runs the conversation through his mind over and over, trying to deduce Travis’s angle. It’s Travis Tanner, there’s got to be a deeper scheme here, and if he just tries hard enough he’ll tease it out. Travis could be trying to make him feel indebted, so he’ll have to repay the favor. Maybe this is a distraction to make Harvey feel like his clients are safe for the moment, even as Travis cooks up a plan to steal them all today. Or maybe . . .

Harvey’s not certain on any of his conjectures, none of them explain why Travis would march right in and announce his evil plan to steal Harvey’s clients one day like a particularly incompetent comic-book villain. Sure, Travis has never gone in for subtlety, but this is downright moronic.

Harvey keeps his head down and concentrates on his work, though he can’t fully shake thoughts of Travis. He pushes himself to impress, to save his job in a firm that apparently wants him to fail, to convince himself that he’s not doomed to be a professional wreck.

So of course, nothing goes his way. His cases are a mess, he can’t pull a full breath into his lungs, there’s hot stress building up just under his skin, and at long last he has a magic insight, fueled by ten hours of sleep spread over three days.

He can still cross lines. He just needs to not get caught.

It’s a brilliant idea.

If just one of the opposing witnesses changes his story, Harvey can knock this case out of the park at trial, and all he needs to do is find the guy and convince him, off the record, that it’s in his best interest to shut his mouth. Immediately Harvey dials Vanessa’s number and asks her to locate him-

“Sorry, Harvey, I can’t do that for you.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Someone else specifically banned me from helping you intimidate him.”

“Who the hell would-” He spins around in his chair with a sharp huff, only to find Travis leaning in the doorway. He rolls his eyes. “Why?”

“He’s trying to help you.”

Harvey unceremoniously hangs up on her and turns his attention to Travis, snapping, “How’d you get to Vanessa?”

“I tracked her down after you made her track _me_ down.”

“How’d you know I’d . . .”

He can’t finish the sentence, but Travis comes in, closes the door, and does it for him. “Try witness tampering?”

Harvey strategically declines to answer.

“Because,” Travis says, sitting down with a sigh, “it’s the exact same thing I’d do, if I was still crossing lines.”

“You really expect me to believe you’re not?”

“I gave it up.” He purses his lips for a moment before adding, “Got too damn tired.”

Harvey might just buy that.

“Thanks to you,” Harvey says, because he has to, this battle’s still not over, “I didn’t do a damn thing. If you turn me in, you won’t get your accusations to stick.”

“Good thing I was never planning to turn you in.”

_What the hell?_

“What’s your game, huh? Why come in here and threaten to take my clients?”

“That was a conditional threat,” Travis says, wagging his finger like a schoolteacher. “It only applied if you did something illegal.”

“Your point is?”

“I thought if I appealed to your lifelong dream to beat me, it’d persuade you not to break any rules.”

“And that’s in your interest . . . how?”

“We’re partners now.”

“That’s your own damn fault, and you know it.”

Travis cocks his head to the side. “Do you hear me complaining?”

Harvey rubs his forehead, exhaling loudly. “What do you _want_ from me?”

It shouldn’t be a hard question, but for the first time in Harvey’s life, he’s managed to render Travis speechless.

“I thought you were the number one lawyer in the world,” he finally says, “first time I met you.”

There’s a “but” coming, and Harvey glances away from Travis, out at the glittering Manhattan skyline.

“And I assumed, to have that title, you were ethically squeaky-clean.” Travis keeps his eyes on him, and eventually he looks back. “Imagine my horror when you offered to commit perjury.”

“That’s hypocrisy-”

“At its finest,” Travis agrees. “But you were supposed to be the good one and you weren’t, so I decided to knock you down a peg or two.”

“So, what, you went on a moral crusade against me?”

“Something like that.”

He scowls at Travis, straining to grasp his admissions. “Why _me_?”

“Forget that,” Travis says with a quick shake of his head. “The point is, I wouldn’t mind seeing you win by _following_ the rules for once.”

“You planning to help with that?” he scoffs.

“Damn right I am.”

Harvey blinks. “What the hell am I missing?”

Travis answers him with a shrug.

Harvey can’t shake the feeling that there’s more here, but he’s got court deadlines pressing down on him, and he’s sick of distrusting everyone he knows. So he pushes the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure across the table. “You say you’ll help. Prove it.”

Travis takes the book with a grin.

* * *

Harvey waits for Travis to break his trust.

Instead, Travis keeps to his word and helps Harvey with that case; the two of them pass the FRCP back and forth until two in the morning, crafting a perfectly legal procedural justification for getting half the other side’s evidence thrown out. Over the next few weeks, he swings by Harvey’s office to help with another matter, and another.

Gradually, though still more quickly than he would have thought possible, Harvey manages to rehabilitate his practice, remembering how to win big without sacrificing his integrity in the process, and in time he starts consulting on Travis’s cases as well. They’re well-matched in their skillsets- equally clever, equally well-trained, with a taste for blood that makes them competitive in corporate law- but they make for good friends, too. They’ve got surprisingly similar senses of humor; first time Harvey drops a Quantico reference, Travis cracks up for twenty seconds before quoting the next line verbatim.

God knows he doesn’t want to, but Harvey has _fun_ working with him.

Within a few months, Travis has somehow roped him into a pro bono case that neither of them hates as much as they claim to, and it turns out they both resemble good people at their core. Harvey’s happier than he’s been in years, with an abundance of professional victories that he’s genuinely proud of, and a friend who just might not betray him.

He waits for the other shoe to drop, and it never does. Still, he can’t stop the feeling he’s missing something more.

* * *

Travis reads people as well as Harvey does, and he seems to specialize in reading Harvey. He regularly fishes Harvey out of trouble, and he’s just smug enough about it that Harvey can’t worry about Travis actually caring. Harvey tries to display the same emotional awareness, but sometimes he wonders if he’s misinterpreting things. Like tonight, Harvey’s been hitting on a waitress for a solid hour during a joint business dinner, and Travis’s smile has an extra crinkle in it, but that surely doesn’t mean a thing.

A few minutes later, Travis dons his classic smirk to report that they’ve hit a snag on their latest case and have to head back to the office for the night. Harvey’s not half as irritated as he should be.

Somewhere around two, Travis takes a break to shower and change into casual clothes- there’s no way in hell they’ll make it back to their apartments tonight- and then he joins Harvey down in the firm file room, bringing along two cups of coffee. Harvey thanks him briefly before scanning yet another piece of evidence, praying that their associates missed something on their first pass.

At three, Harvey hands Travis a stack of pages. “Hey, look at this.”

He skims it and immediately understands Harvey’s interest. “And, bingo, we are in.” Harvey preens, and Travis shoots him a faux-mocking smile. “What, the end of a Fortune 500 company makes you happy?”

“Yeah,” Harvey says. That’s not how the quote goes, though, so he amends, “But I also like watching you work.”

Travis rolls his eyes and starts flipping through the rest of the stack, and Harvey indulges for a moment in really just watching him work. Travis refrained from reapplying gel after the shower, and without it he’s actually moderately handsome, rugged jaw framed by soft wavy hair-

“You were in the closet,” Harvey observes.

Travis glances up with a quizzical look. “I still am, professionally . . .”

“No,” Harvey says, staring into Travis’s piercing blue eyes, “you were in Alicia Meyer’s closet.”

Travis’s frown turns into shock, and then the grin of a kid caught with the cookie jar.

Harvey’s jaw drops. “What the hell were you doing?”

“Having sex with the hottest student in school.”

“I-” Harvey blinks, and then they both start speaking, voices overlapping in rapidfire rhythm. “Did you know it was me?”

“How could I not? Goddamn junior with all your baseball trophies-”

“Then why’d you leave?”

“Wha— what?” Travis scowls. “You left me!”

Harvey breaks down laughing, dropping his head into his hands. “No, I got lost getting drinks, by the time I came back you were gone.”

“I thought . . .” When Travis’s face cartwheels through another series of expressions, Harvey connects the dots.

“You thought I dumped you. Wait, no-” his eyes widen- “you thought I _spurned_ you.”

“How the- Jesus, the Scott deposition.”

“And here I thought I monopolized the transference in this relationship,” Harvey says, smirking so hard his cheeks hurt. “Did you dream about me flipping burgers in Westchester?”

Travis gives a long-suffering sigh. “If you have to know, it was the cape.”

“Even better,” he says, beaming. “So tell me, when did the plan switch to ruining my life?”

“. . . When you spurned me.”

“That’s fantastically petty.”

“I got through Yale Law on the strength of that spite. Fifth in the class, just like you.”

“Smaller class, though.”

“And still more competitive. We don’t let in the riffraff.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a jerk.” Harvey throws his head back, laughing.

“I set up so many plans to destroy you, I’m still kinda proud.” Travis shakes his head, cracking up as well. “It was pretty recent that it occurred to me that pulling girls’ pigtails didn’t work for boys on the playground, so maybe I should switch tactics.”

Oh.

“Are you saying you like me, or that you like-like me?”

Travis rolls his eyes in particularly dramatic fashion. “Make one more joke, and I’ll walk out that door.”

Harvey gives a cavalier shrug. “Somehow I doubt you can stay away from me at this point.”

“I can sure as hell give it a shot.”

“You know what’s a really great way to stay away from someone?”

Quantico again, and Harvey’s never been so grateful that he watched it all upon joining Smith and Devane.

“Spending the entire night with them alone.” Travis’s eyes soften, flickering down to Harvey’s lips.

They’re shut in a narrow aisle between two shelves, surrounded by boxes and files instead of clothes, and Harvey can’t shake the sensation that he’s still sixteen and on the verge of discovering something new. Still, he can’t resist—

“Let me go get us a drink.”

“Don’t you dare.”

**Author's Note:**

> The "sentimental" conversation is from S2E4 ("Discovery").
> 
> The Emerson Petroleum case- which features an actual field trip to high school and also the most convoluted way to give another guy your number that I can imagine- is from S1E9 ("Undefeated").
> 
> The deposition where Travis goes after Jessica and Harvey is from S2E7 ("Sucker Punch").
> 
> The boxing match- which I refer to as wrestling because at one point they throw their arms around each other, which doesn't strike me as a standard boxing maneuver- is from S2E10 ("High Noon").
> 
> The Scott deposition is from S3E10 ("Stay").
> 
> The sex dream is right out of S5E5 ("Toe to Toe").
> 
> "What do you want me to say, huh? That I got tired of playing the goon? Because I did.  
> Yeah, I woke up one morning and I said, 'Enough is enough.' And I haven't taken one case that I don't believe in or done anything that I couldn't stomach since."- Travis, S5E5
> 
> Travis references Quantico in court during S5E5, and I went ahead and assumed he was referring to the show.


End file.
